


You Make Me Feel So Young

by reckless_abandon



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-03 22:51:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17292899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reckless_abandon/pseuds/reckless_abandon
Summary: Rhett Mclaughlin was used to larger city life before moving to Buies Creek, NC, so he knew going to school and making new friends was not going to be a problem. But on the third day of first grade, Rhett punched John Carson for making fun of a little farmboy named Link, and a friendship much stronger than he could have thought possible began. That was 1937. Now the year is 1956, and Rhett's realizing how much their lives are starting to drift apart as they get older. But there's something inside that doesn't want to let go...





	You Make Me Feel So Young

Rhett Mclaughlin had known his best friend since age seven when they first walked to school together. Yes, they knew a bus ran around Buies Creek every morning around 6:50am, oftentimes just as the sun was coming over the tobacco fields, but Rhett stopped riding that bus after the third day, choosing the two-mile trek instead. It wasn’t a decision he made willingly. If he could have chosen, he would have ridden that bus every day for the rest of his life, drawing terrible cartoons of the girls they knew from church by memory. Rhett had a way of getting along with nearly every kid he met, even though he was new to North Carolina that year. The move didn’t impact him much. It felt like every year before, except new friends were needed if he were to have anything to do after school. His older brother, Cole, also had some new friends he had met that summer that Rhett found himself towing after on days he didn’t have plans. Regardless, most days were not something he worried about spending bored.

Charles Neal, however, was an only child. His family called him Link, never Charles, after his middle name. Charles would always be his father, and Lincoln his grandfather, and that family was dead set on keeping the tradition. Every new experience seemed to baffle him, and more often than not he was likely to be found on some cousin or uncle’s field by simple obligation, helping haul in corn or tobacco crop, plow fields, or simply learn from his older relatives what to do when he was old enough to do more dangerous tasks. It didn’t take long before he realized that some of the things the others would say seemed lost on him, whether about something an older brother knew about or some new music they had heard on the record player at home. And with the final straw on that third day, when John Carson mocked him for not knowing the new Gershwin song, irately mentioning that it wasn’t _foggy_ out. After that, he made sure to just walk, regardless of how long it took.

Rhett watched it all unfold. Later that same day he found John and socked him in the stomach outside in the school yard, telling him to leave Link alone. It wasn’t his fault that music wasn’t a thing he had easy access to. And from that moment on, Rhett made sure to stop by Link’s house on the way to school, rain or shine, to walk down the same road the bus took.

Nineteen years later, not much had changed. Well, they both were out of school and in their own occupations, but their friendship hadn’t changed one bit. They had made it through the second world war (which felt like it would never end) and Korea. The Vietnam war was in full swing, and the Cold War loomed overhead the entire time. Yet every day Rhett would pick up Link in his Ford F350 and drive in to Fuquay Varina for work. Carpooling became their biggest time together to discuss what had happened during work or the night prior, and Saturdays were set aside as time for time at the bar, where Rhett would frequent guitar accompanies to Link’s occasional made up improvised song.

But something seemed promising about 1956. Maybe it was the humid summer air of North Carolina seeming lighter that year. Maybe because that was the year Rhett bought his F350, which was his first car he had fully owned himself. Or maybe it was just because, ever since that time Link was mocked out in first grade, Rhett made it his mission to bring as much music to Link as he could. He could see the joy on his face when they sat on Saturday nights hearing a jazz band play the new hits from the greats, and it made his heart full to see every time the child-like wonder entered those big blue eyes in the smoky room. It was like they were kids again, listening to Cole’s record player when he wasn’t home. And if any year was the year for music, 1956 was the year.

And 1956 marked the year Rhett knew he would die for Link.

Saturday, June 2, 1956 was another bar night. The night before, Link had begged some of his friends from Fuquay to join Rhett and him for the weekly bar night. Rumor had it both Louis Prima and Sam Butera would be at Gregg’s Bar that Saturday, and Link refused to pass up the opportunity to go. As Rhett was picking him back up for the ride home that night, he sat outside his best friend’s barber shop as he gushed to a patron about the plan. Rhett watched from the car at the curb, knowing full well that Link likely didn’t know he was there. He was so smart and passionate, but god forbid the boy had to do two things at once…

But there was something about the way Link spoke from that distance that struck Rhett as different. He had seen Link speak passionately about things before. But there was something that hit Rhett deep in the chest. It was almost as if his heart had finally made the connection that this passion was something that wouldn’t be there without him in his life. And as he sat there, looking out that passenger window at his friend, talking down a few steps at his leaving patron with his newsboy cap on and those boyish blue slacks held up by black suspenders…

He shook his head. He was just being nostalgic. They spent more time together back then, when they were at the same school and spent evenings together. They were older, and getting jobs and meeting other people was part of growing up. They were moving their separate ways, but they would always have that commute and Saturday night time. But he couldn’t seem to shake that stomach feeling that felt something between a lead weight and the lightest feather all at once.

When Link finally came to the car, he took off his hat and tossed it into Rhett’s lap, a bounce in his step. That smirk he got when he was thinking about something he couldn’t hold in any longer was on his face, showing just a bit of his bottom canine.

“I already wished you happy birthday this morning,” Rhett chuckled. “What else do you want from me?”

Link ran his hand through his jet-black hair, pushing it off his forehead. “You know, I’ve always wanted to play the trumpet.” He busted out laughing, unable to hold the excitement in any longer. “We’re still going to drive together tomorrow night, right? I got a group of people who are coming, but I told them to meet us.”

“That’s pretty presumptuous,” Rhett muttered, starting the car back up. “But it’s a correct presumption.”

“Give me that back,” he said, grabbing back his hat from across the car. He crumpled it in his hand. It was either his hat or his hands being rung, and always when his head was swimming. Rhett couldn’t help but smile, too. “So, what do you think about tomorrow? Are you excited?”

“Of course, Link. Isn’t that a rhetorical question?”

“Yah, yah, I know.”

Rhett thought for a minute.

“How would you like for me to make you dinner tomorrow?”

That made Link laugh out loud.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, just us. I feel like we haven’t been spending as much time as we used to together. I was thinking about back when we were still in school…”

“Come on, Rhett,” Link said. “That was a long time ago. We’ve both gotten busy. You with your newspaper, me with my business. We still drive together every day. And you drive, so I don’t miss any exits!”

“You’re right, you’re right,” he said quietly, getting lost in his own thoughts. “I was thinking some wine and some good southern cooking. I still have some of my momma’s recipes lying around, and I’m getting a bit tired of leftovers. But if you don’t want to…”

“I never said that, man,” he said. “I’m game. But make sure foods ready before I get there! And no tomatoes. Or olives. Or mint flavored stuff. You know.”

Rhett smiled, feeling slightly sad for a reason he couldn’t pinpoint. “The usual. I know. I got the list.”

**Author's Note:**

> Currently working on Chapter 2. Stay tuned.


End file.
